Shyama Vermeersch

Shyama completed her M.A. degree in Egyptology at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) in 2014, focussing on Pre- and Early Dynastic Egypt. After graduating, she decided to specialise in animal bones, which lead to her completing a M.Sc. in zooarchaeology at the University of Tübingen (Germany). Her research interest lies in diet and subsistence changes from the Late Neolithic to Iron Age Period in the Near Eastern Area.

Shyama is a PhD candidate for the SFB 1070 ResourceCultures, Project A05 ‘“The Land flowing with Milk and Honey”. Development and Significance of Agrarian Resources in Bronze and Iron Age Palestine’ at the University of Tübingen. Here she will investigate how agricultural resources can be viewed as cultural entities beyond their economic value by combining metadata analysis of geographically and temporally appropriate sites in the Palestine region, site-specific analysis (ex. Tel Lachish) and the targeted analysis of taboo and non-taboo species (ex. pig vs. donkey). Besides this, she will also try to find a way to combine the zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical record for this region.